Turning out in the arena

[StephBiscuit]

Surely it's bad manners to turn horses out in the (connecting) outdoor arena whilst someone is riding in the indoor (with the arena doors open)?

I was riding a horse in the indoor this afternoon attempting to do dressage practice for tomorrow when a livery turned two horses out in the outdoor arena. The horses obviously had a roll, jumped up and started leaping around, resulting in Bella growing about two hands, and I decided to get off before she exploded!

 

[nikicb]

It's hard to know without knowing your set up, but my school is surrounded by paddocks where horses are turned out and regularly have a hooley while I am schooling and we just ride through it. What are the rules for your yard?

 

[SusieT]

nope, if the arena is safe to turn out in I have to say I'd use it as good practice for distractions! you could have politely asked them not to if you knew it would be a problem? Or closed the indoor arena doors?

 

[prodigal2]

I don’t consider that to be rude in the slightest.
In fact i personally feel they have done you a favour, particularly as no one was hurt.
The way i train my horses, the behaviour your horse showed indicates that the horse was not focused on you and what your doing. More importantly there is flight/fright response(rearing/bolting) that may be present. and when you are at a show and next to the show ring is a warm up ring, your horse may show the same response or bigger. And it would be something that would be my priority to fix.
Now that is just me, and how i like to try and run my horses, and your methods and outlook may differ. If that is the case maybe shutting the door next time would be the answer, as the other liveries should be able to use the facilities to meet their needs as much as yours.

 

[Sussexbythesea]

I consider it rude and I don’t think two loose horses farting about in an arena compares to turn out or any show siutuation. You’re at home and expect to be schooling in a relatively safe environment. You could be on a young just backed or ultra sensitive horse not ready for those experiences and unless advanced why would you have complete control? Alternatively you could be a novice, nervous rider again not ready for those experiences.

Not only that but it damages the arena surface

I also can’t abide “loose schooling” either as it usually consists of a teenager running after an out of control Horse with a stick.

 

[webble]

I agree it's good experience for your horse. Manners would dictate the person ask if you want the door closing first though. The last three yards I've been on have all had horses turned out next to the school

 

[tallyho!]

I don't mean to be rude or anything but, what do you do when you're at shows and there's all sorts of shenanigans going on all around? Do you go and tell the secretary to stop the other classes while you do your test/show/round?

I personally feel that horses should be under a riders' control no matter is going on extraneously and if you haven't got any control, maybe consider not riding until you have.

 

[Sussexbythesea]

I personally feel that horses should be under a riders' control no matter is going on extraneously and if you haven't got any control, maybe consider not riding until you have.

What a load of tosh. How can you possibly learn to control a horse without riding!

Horse Riding is a journey most of us never complete.

 

[Ambers Echo]

Agree with the others - facilities are there for everyone. Our outdoor is right next to fields on 3 sides and horses are regularly going nuts when people are schooling. At first this was very challenging for me with a sensitive green horse but i regarded that as my problem not theirs. Your horse needs to be under your control regardless of distractions.
On my old yard a Parelli person was doing stuff on a lunge line actually in the arena I was also in. She suddenly got a whip out and cracked it loudly on either side of her horse! And very near to mine! Now that really WAS rude!

 

[WandaMare]

Maybe you could pick times to ride when others aren't likely to be around, you can't really control things like that when you are sharing facilities with others. I do think it would have been considerate for them to let you know what they were planning though.

 

[rara007]

It's not unknown for similar to happen competing either to be fair! We only have the one school and there's a 10m gap between it and any field so don't get this issue so can't practically help. Is the horse very hot/green? I expect my established ones to cope with pretty much anything.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

It would have been better manners for the owners to ask if you wanted them to shut the doors but then your horse would have been able to hear the noise without seeing the cause and might have been more reactive. You can't expect others to work around you all the time.
We don't have an arena, we school in the fields when they are fit. Our fields are surrounded by fields which belong to other people, who take in/put out their horses, drive their tractors, play with their dogs etc etc. The horses just have to get used to it all.

 

[tristar]

its difficult to control everything.

my riding surface generally has a wild shetland and its car mad owner racing round in a noisy vehicle one side and two donkeys who usually decide to go bananas upon seeing our horses come out to work and gallop round at 90 miles an hour at the other end.

its wonderful for de sensitising

 

[ester]

There was a big whinge on FB about sparsholt's turned out horses having a hoon during BD the other week. I would just chalk it up to good practice.

 

[WeeLassie]

I think the person who tuurned their horses out has as much right to do that as you do to ride in the indoor. You are both liveries I take it? Surely you could have shut the arenna door then you'd both have been happy.

 

[stencilface]

It's unfortunate if you can't work through it.

I on the other hand with a very paid back beastie love it if something puts a rocket up his bum for me, love riding on windy days.

Sorry I'm not helpful am I

 

[iknowmyvalue]

It would have been polite for them to ask if it was ok/if you wanted the doors shutting, but I don't think it's too rude. There's a lot of places where fields with horses turned out in them completely surround the arena, even at competition venues. I've seen plenty of places where the arena fence is part of a field fence with horses in that field! And the same thing can happen out hacking if you pass fields with horses in, you can't control them if they decide to gallop up and down the fenceline next to you!

I'd just consider it a good opportunity for desensitisation. It might not be what you'd planned to do, but it's good for horses to learn to cope with distractions. What if someone was to fall off their horse in a warmup ring and it decided to bomb around? You'd want your horse to be calm enough to cope. I've got a very green/reactive horse, but he learnt very quickly to pretty much ignore the free range ponies/sheep/dogs that wander around. Sometimes we have to try and herd the sheep out of the way if we want to jump a particular XC fence!

Sorry that's probably not the response you wanted to hear! I think that since the horses were in a separate arena, even if your horse could see and hear them, that their owner should have the right to turn them out in there. I don't know the setup, but surely you could have closed the arena doors or worked at the opposite end of the arena until they settled down a bit? I doubt they would have been charging about for more than a few minutes...

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Surely it's bad manners to turn horses out in the (connecting) outdoor arena whilst someone is riding in the indoor (with the arena doors open)?

I was riding a horse in the indoor this afternoon attempting to do dressage practice for tomorrow when a livery turned two horses out in the outdoor arena. The horses obviously had a roll, jumped up and started leaping around, resulting in Bella growing about two hands, and I decided to get off before she exploded!

We allow people to turn out or loose school even if someone riding in the ourdoor

 

[scats]

Bit of a pain if you had something planned, but I’d probably use it as a training tool. It’s always good to get them used to working with all sorts going on.

 

[Louby]

Unfortunately I think this comes as part of being on a livery yard. If yours is anything like ours, getting to turnout in the school is basically get in there if theres no one else in or before the next livery comes along. I thought I had chosen a quiet time to lean over my unbacked 3 yr old when a child came riding round, straight in the school and my young horse expoded Then they went, then they came back, then they stood on their pony watching. I was well peed off but despite asking her to give us 10 mins, she just stood watching. I gave up at that point

 

[KautoStar1]

Well it's always polite not necessarily to ask if OK but just it give a heads up. However I am always horrified by people who turn out in the arena. Generally I find the people who do this don't ride much and certainly don't school their horses so they don't see the value of the arena surface but also for my horse the arena is a place of work not somewhere to turn cartwheels in. It makes my toes curl. I maybe generalising a bit but this is my experience. Certainly if I ran a yard arena turn out would be out of the question.

 

[PapaverFollis]

It's polite to check with a person riding in a school if it's ok before you do anything spooky in the vacinity of the school. It is polite for the person riding to say "yeah sure, no problem" as far as is possible and then, with due warning, ride through the distraction. At our yard we ask each other before turning out in fields next to the school or doing things like moving trailers round etc and we definitelu ask before we ride in with someone. Noone ever objects to anything and at the most would go "can you give me a couple of minutes?"

So the person turning out could have asked you... but I wouldn't expect them to wait until you'd finished riding more that by asking they are warning you and checking you aren't in the middle of something tricky, or sloping around on a loose rein and not ready for the distraction. It's all good practice cos anything can happen out at an event or hacking but when schooling at home I think it is nice if your environment is a little bit more protected.

 

[Xtra]

consider yourself lucky we have one at my yard who thinks its ok to turn out while you are riding already (same school)

 

[Red-1]

I hire an indoor school near to us, I think it is £25 an hour. Often they will turn out in the collecting ring next door. Sadly the collecting ring has an above head height wall so my horse can hear the other one go berserk but not see it.

Several times I have hired the school and not done as much jumping of fences as I expected. It is defo an education though! I guess if I wanted exclusive rights over the indoor arena and the collecting ring then I would have to hire both. That would be £40 total for the hour.

Sadly when school use is included in livery cost you don't generally have right over the surroundings too. I wonder if you could specially hire both arenas if you needed exclusive use (paying extra obviously)? I have taught in a couple of yards where liveries could have joint co-operative use of the school in busy times and off peak too for free, but if they wanted exclusive use it had to be paid for an in an off-peak time only so it did not impact on the other liveries too much. There is usually a board or diary to book exclusive paid for use.

If it matters to you maybe it could be put forwards as an idea? I only know about it as usually a client would prefer exclusive use when having a lesson - which usually had to be at an off-peak time (not 5pm-8pm weekdays and not AM at the weekends or similar at each yard).

As for arena turnout - that is what I use for my turnout all winter long, and yes, I do value my surface. We poo pick every day and OH harrows it 2-3 times a week.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Well it's always polite not necessarily to ask if OK but just it give a heads up. However I am always horrified by people who turn out in the arena. Generally I find the people who do this don't ride much and certainly don't school their horses so they don't see the value of the arena surface but also for my horse the arena is a place of work not somewhere to turn cartwheels in. It makes my toes curl. I maybe generalising a bit but this is my experience. Certainly if I ran a yard arena turn out would be out of the question.

We haven't an arena, we school in the fields, when they are dry enough(!) The horses soon learn the difference between being turned out and being ridden.

 

[Sussexbythesea]

I think it’s bad manners but then people seem to think bad manners is the norm today.

I take it it is also ok to deliberately gallop past other people out hacking as sometimes that also happens too bad if it upsets your horse and you fall off? Is there no riding etiquette any more?

I don’t understand why people don’t see the difference between a school and a field. One people have control over and make deliberate decisions about. The other you have no control over and therefore one has to be aware of what might happen.

Is it ok to do the same if a child was having a lesson in the arena the pony took off and the child was injured?

 

[ozpoz]

I'm surprised that arena turnout is allowed, if it is used as a place to let off steam while others are riding - not the safest practice and as Sussexbythe sea says "what if this was a small child riding?" It is bad manners not to forewarn.

 

[ester]

I don’t understand why people don’t see the difference between a school and a field. One people have control over and make deliberate decisions about. The other you have no control over and therefore one has to be aware of what might happen.

I'm confused? are you saying that there is control over a school and not a field if both are used for turnout?

 

[LaurenBay]

I would actually consider it rude. At shows you are very unlikely to come across lose Horses having a hooney right next door to you. Are your field shut for turnout?

 

[GTRJazz]

Surely it's bad manners to turn horses out in the (connecting) outdoor arena whilst someone is riding in the indoor (with the arena doors open)?

I was riding a horse in the indoor this afternoon attempting to do dressage practice for tomorrow when a livery turned two horses out in the outdoor arena. The horses obviously had a roll, jumped up and started leaping around, resulting in Bella growing about two hands, and I decided to get off before she exploded!

Yes bad manners , and a insight into their skill level cannot ride or lunge when the horse gets full of itself in the Winter

Getting off to school another day, not a bad decision if you are sitting on a lot of horse.

I have three horses the eldest was 5 when we got him and the youngest three and a half you could now ride them around horses out of control on the lunge and we quite often ride in the school with four yearlings running around next to us. Just takes a bit of time.